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Friday, October 26, 2012

FCPS School Board rejects Graham Road as site for charter school

Graham Road Elementary School

The
Fairfax County School Board voted unanimously to eliminate the Graham Road
Elementary School building as a site for the proposed Fairfax Leadership Academy and to defer action on the charter school until the FLA submits a
revised application addressing concerns raised by a review committee and
board members.

The
board did however affirm its interest in the FLA’s concept for seeking to
address the educational needs of at-risk students. The board held a public hearing on the proposal earlier this month.

Falls Church High School PTA President Joan Daly said she was “really surprised that
they took Graham Road off the table.” Daly is a member of the FCHS parents
group, UPROAR, which strongly opposed having the FLA at the Graham Road
building. “This is huge for us,” she said.

The
school board had already indicated it would defer a decision on approving the
charter school’s application because the FLA failed to get a federal grant it
needed to make the concept work.

FLA
will resubmit the application next year, so it will be at least two years
before the school could open. Meanwhile, FLA founder Eric Welch will need to
find a new location and address a long list of problems raised by an FCPS review committee. Those issues covered the budget, admissions process, plan for
meeting the needs of special education students, the curriculum, and much more.
The committee recommended that the board not approve the application until
those issues are resolved.

The
amendment to defer a vote and remove Graham Road from consideration was proposed by Patty Reed
of the Providence District. Sandy
Evans of the Mason District spoke in favor of those amendments and mentioned the opposition by the FCHS parents, adding, “We need to listen to the concerns of the community.” Both the Graham Road building and FCHS are in Providence,
and some of the students who attend FCHS live in Mason. Reed is planning a joint meeting with the county in November on the need for services in that community and to discuss how the Graham Road building can be used.

At
the meeting Reed noted that in 2008, when the school board voted to relocate
Graham Road Elementary School to the Devonshire Center, the board had promised
the community that the Graham Road facility would be available for community
use, such as recreational and social services. That building would have needed
extensive renovations if it were used to house another school.

“A lot
of board members liked aspects of the charter school,” said Daly, who attended
the board meeting, “but in practical terms, who’s going to pay for it? FCPS has
a large deficit. Any program that gets funding really to justify itself.”

While
UPROAR is gratified that the FLA, if approved, won’t be using the Graham Road
site, “we had other issues besides the location,” Daly said. “How are we going to
get those at-risk kids to enroll when it’s open enrollment? They can’t preselect.
It has to be open enrollment.”

Welsh’s
concept calls for the school to be targeted to lower-income, minority students
who are struggling in traditional public schools. The FLA would have longer
school days, a year-round schedule, and other supports aimed at reducing the
achievement gap between those students and their more affluent peers.

2 comments:

A big public thank you to Patty Reed and Sandy Evans for representing their constituents concerns in this matter. To anyone who feels that elected officials have a tin ear to constituent concerns, this is a great example of representative democracy at work. Thank you to Joan Daly, UPROAR and other FCHS parents for representing the community's interests so effectively. Finally, thank you to the other school board members for including community input in this decision even when not from your district. Thank you all.

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